‘Send us proof he's alive’

Spanish government appeals to Russia over missing pensioner from Valencia

SPAIN'S foreign affairs ministry has demanded ‘video proof ’ that a Valencia pensioner who may have been abducted in Ukraine is alive.

Mariano ‘Mario’ García Calatayud, aged 74, has lived in the eastern European country for seven years after relocating during the previous conflict with Russia to join aid efforts, and is in a relationship with a Ukrainian woman. He was seen being bundled into a car by Russian military during an anti-war protest in the occupied port city of Kherson on March 22, and nobody has heard from him since.

A retired works brigade foreman for the local council in his native Carlet, Mario has always been outspoken against Russian leader Vladimir Putin's invasion of the neighbouring nation, joining demonstrations dating back to the annexing of Crimea.

He had publicly said recently that he was prepared to 'bear arms if necessary', and had turned down the offer to be evacuated by Spanish authorities when war broke out in February.

Mario's son and two siblings in Carlet and nearby Benimodo were unable to convince him to return.

Reports last Friday in the Spanish national press claiming Mario had been released have since been countered, and it is still not clear whether the expat is alive.

Neither has it been confirmed whether his disappearance during the protest march was an arrest or a kidnap. As yet, Mario is the only Spaniard known to have been detained or, possibly, abducted by Russian forces in Ukraine.

It was his friend Olena who raised the alarm on March 22, calling his sister in Carlet.

Olena and other friends at the demonstration, who saw Mario being taken, had tried reaching him on his mobile phone – which was ringing out, but unanswered.

Later, on Thursday, March 24, Olena revealed 'informants' from the resistance had told her Mario was alive, but under arrest.

According to Spanish businessman Julio Suárez – who trades in Kherson and whose son, Vitaly Suárez, is an aid volunteer in Ukraine – the crossed wires came after a visit by an undisclosed ‘public personality’ to where Mario was allegedly being held. The Russian Armed Forces promised this person that they planned to set Mario free.

Based upon this information, Olena wrote on Facebook: “Thank God, Mario has been released.”

But when foreign minister José Manuel Albares contacted the Russian military to find out whether this was the case, he was told the pensioner would not be freed ‘until Kherson is part of Russian territory’.

Friends in Ukraine, increasingly worried, have appealed to Russian authorities to let Mario see a doctor.

His family are in close contact with the Spanish embassy for Kyiv (Kiev) – now based in Warsaw, Poland – and Sr Albares has requested Russia provide a video proving Mario is still living.

Mario had said previously that he was 'not scared' and that the Russians were wary of him because he is a Spanish war veteran.

His decision to move to Ukraine to help out in 2014, and to stay there after the recent invasion, came from a sense of personal debt to the country. Mario's father had told him the city of Odessa took in Spanish refugee children during the Civil War, about 70 of whom were from the Valencia region.